NBC Taps YuMe to Monetize Fledgling Content Download Service

Broadband video ad network YuMe has struck its first deal with a major network. NBC Direct tapped the firm to provide ad management, campaign management, trafficking and reporting for its full-length program downloads.

NBC Direct, still in beta, offers free episodes from NBC’s primetime lineup. It’s one of several efforts by NBC — including its involvement with Fox in Hulu.com and through streaming video available at NBC.com — to make its shows available online.

“We’re an ad platform and an ad network,” said YuMe CEO Jayant Kadambi, who noted online ad buys can be packaged with the TV buys. Indeed, he expects many of the same ads shown during program broadcasts will also appear in the downloaded versions. YuMe’s system offers many of the ad delivery and management functions commonly available online, including ad rotation, frequency caps, geo-targeting and reports.

YuMe offers all popular video ad formats, including in-stream, overlay and custom video ads, and the company says it will transcode and reformat existing ad content into new formats on request. Available metrics include the number of downloads and playbacks, and the system is capable of reporting data on reconnection of computers that were taken offline after a program was downloaded.